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Trollbert wrote:
I am not talking about Orks. Their index sucks.

I don't know if this thread is supposed to be focused on hyper-competitive lists, in which case basically any discussion is futile because of how many factors determine what list will win tournaments.

But AM, Daemons with tons of brimstones and Tyranids (at least if their upcoming codex will handle buffs and nerfs similar to the Marine codices) should be able to table an equally-competitive army while bringing 100 wounds of chaff.


From a semi-competitive palyers point of view, the problem with conscripts and pre-nerf brimstones was their damage output compared to their point cost.
Pre-nerf brimstones dealt 2/3 mortal wound per 23 points and you had to kill the unit to reduce that damage. They were more or less immune to morale due to their low numbers.
And conscripts are not that different. After all buffs, they just deal to much damage for their 3 (+ whatever the buffs cost per model, so probably 4) points/wound.
If thats not cheap guns, I don't know what is.

From a highly competitive players point of view, hordes are not that strong but that's because of Guilliman and whatever he buffs.

What pisses me off personally is how horde armies are the best counter to horde armies. And because conscripts are too good, any other horde unit suffers.

Tbh it's not supposed to be focused especially on hyper competitive lists. My original premise is We're in an edition that favors lots of boots on the ground (which I'm happy with) but due to the removal of templates and blasts we've removed the counterbalance for hordes. As such we've seen a pretty big swing away from elite armies. I've observed that while conscripts may be the problem of the moment, they're far from the only problem horde unit we've seen. And the problem with hordes often isn't the horde itself (and I don't think the issue with guard is actually the conscripts) it's the ability to protect the high damage units with the hordes and swamp the enemy from being able to deal with the damage dealers. For instance with guard at the moment conscripts aren't what kill people it's the 3-6 earthshakers combined with 6+ mortar teams and deepnstrikinf elysians plasma command squads. You just can't deal with the damage dealers because they're ensconced in a nice wrap of conscripts. Because of this lack of counter and irrespective of the conscripts (or horrors or razorwings) hordes by default exist in either OP or gak tier state. If they plus their support are cheap enough they dominate if they aren't or there isn't the right kind of support units available they're just not worth taking. Beyond that any push to balance them inherently only further destabilizes the situation because for instance buffing the most common anti infantry weapon the heavy bolter by decreasing it's cost for instance ends up doing more to hose marines than it does to hose conscripts. I think people are too hyper focused on the conscripts in specific. Even if we were to say meh we just won't have commissars affect conscripts guard could just switch to infantry squads and it wouldn't be a huge shift. Assuming nids/orcs see any level of buffs from their dex I expect we'll see the same issues crop up, because at the end of the day the most cost effective thing to shoot at a conscript/grot/gant/horror/razorwing/walker is a lasgun held by the cheapest dude we can find.

I don't understand the problem to be honest. You're all saying that orks are not competitive and that brimstones or razorwing flocks were nerfed so it's irrelevant mentioning them. In fact daemons hordes are not manageble by everyone. Tyranids are also far from being overpowered, with orks and drukhari I have fair games against some competitive tyranids lists and that says everything.

Counter the hordes in general may be something that can be considered but then you should improve a lot those armies that mostly rely on the number of their cheap dudes, since usually the rest of the codex isn't competitive at all.

That ork player that usually tables the opponents probably plays in a 100% fluffy and casual environment, have a look at data tournaments and see how many horde oriented lists end up in the first positions. Only AM and imperial soups using AM cheap bodies.

At the end of the day even if you don't have a specific anti horde tool but still have good odds to defeat tyranids, orks, daemons or other hordes but AM where's the issue?

With orks I have extremely poor anti tank and no anti flyers at all, but I can still win games against armored lists and armies that bring flyers. I can do very little against those specific units but I can do a lot against the enemy list overall.

AM is overpowered, we all know that. It's not fair and doesn't help the game a nerf of a specific style of playing just to counter a single army. Make imperial soups illegal and increase the cost of AM firepower, problem solved without screwing non overpowered hordes.

 Blackie wrote:
I don't understand the problem to be honest. You're all saying that orks are not competitive and that brimstones or razorwing flocks were nerfed so it's irrelevant mentioning them. In fact daemons hordes are not manageble by everyone. Tyranids are also far from being overpowered, with orks and drukhari I have fair games against some competitive tyranids lists and that says everything.

Counter the hordes in general may be something that can be considered but then you should improve a lot those armies that mostly rely on the number of their cheap dudes, since usually the rest of the codex isn't competitive at all.

That ork player that usually tables the opponents probably plays in a 100% fluffy and casual environment, have a look at data tournaments and see how many horde oriented lists end up in the first positions. Only AM and imperial soups using AM cheap bodies.

At the end of the day even if you don't have a specific anti horde tool but still have good odds to defeat tyranids, orks, daemons or other hordes but AM where's the issue?

With orks I have extremely poor anti tank and no anti flyers at all, but I can still win games against armored lists and armies that bring flyers. I can do very little against those specific units but I can do a lot against the enemy list overall.

AM is overpowered, we all know that. It's not fair and doesn't help the game a nerf of a specific style of playing just to counter a single army. Make imperial soups illegal and increase the cost of AM firepower, problem solved without screwing non overpowered hordes.

First off in imperial soup and AM are hardly the only strong tourney lists, chaos soup is also doing quite well but that's really not the point.

The ork player plays at my flgs which idk how competitive it is the. We have a ton of ITC and ATC guys there, but idk how fluffy they are when playing. The lists all seem fairly tuned to me. He plays a green horde supported by a gak ton of weirdboys and just smite spam everyone to death forcing d6 smites by keeping enough boys nearby. Whether it's truly competitive idk, but I've seen him destroy lots of people and I haven't been able to beat him, though I haven't used my guard against him only admech.

I don't disagree that we could in theory work on conscripts only, though personally I don't think they're the real problem, I more think it's earthshaker batteries and mortar teams that can be bubble wrapped and kept out of sight. My issue is even if we today did something to "fix" conscripts we're left with a system where the horde armies will either be bad or OP. It's really the only two choices imo. Either they're cheap enough with enough support to wreck people or they aren't and you shouldn't bring them.

My only problem with hordes is how different the possibilities to counter them are for different armies.

IG has conscripts, which are one of the best counters to hordes and now the double tapping LR Punisher.
Horde armies in general have their own horde units (some are bad, sure, but when the codices drop and the get better, they will automatically better as anti horde units).

And some non-horde-armies have to invest a lot to counter hordes.
As CSM, I guess my best bet against hordes is bikes with flamers (from the codex at least). That's an average of 20 bolter profile hits for 110 points, if they get in range without advancing, which is not bad by any means.
But those bikes are one hit wonders. They can't cross no mans land and use their full potential and they die easily to a lot of weapons, so if my opponent wants them to die, they die before or after their first salvo which means one squad will kill 1/3 of their point costs before dying if they get to shoot at their full potential.

Trollbert wrote:
My only problem with hordes is how different the possibilities to counter them are for different armies.

IG has conscripts, which are one of the best counters to hordes and now the double tapping LR Punisher.
Horde armies in general have their own horde units (some are bad, sure, but when the codices drop and the get better, they will automatically better as anti horde units).

And some non-horde-armies have to invest a lot to counter hordes.
As CSM, I guess my best bet against hordes is bikes with flamers (from the codex at least). That's an average of 20 bolter profile hits for 110 points, if they get in range without advancing, which is not bad by any means.
But those bikes are one hit wonders. They can't cross no mans land and use their full potential and they die easily to a lot of weapons, so if my opponent wants them to die, they die before or after their first salvo which means one squad will kill 1/3 of their point costs before dying if they get to shoot at their full potential.

See and that's the issue. And honestly those flamer bikes would work better against marines than against conscripts (you'll) kill less but way more in points. Even the punisher is better at shooting at marines than at conscripts.

yup, that is the issue. A weapon would need to be able to kill ~3 conscripts on average for every marine it killed to be of equal value against both. And kill 4 for ever marine to be better used against said conscripts.

To start to do this it would need to be low strength because it needs to wound the conscripts better than. At strength 2 a weapon would on average deal 2 wounds to T3 for every wound it dealt to T4. So in theory a S2 high rate of fire weapon would also answer low T chaff.

In theory something like Assault 9 S2 AP 0 would be a weapon that fits this profile (3 such weapons kill 4 conscripts to every 1 marine assuming 3+ BS). The issue then becomes things like eldar that are more expensive T3 models.

Which would be the reason to give an anti-horde weapon a buff against larger units.

Lets address one of the often repeated statements in this thread.

"There is no anti infantry weapon that is more effective against hordes then it is against marines."

Gaurdsmen, Cultists, Hormagaunts and Termagants. All t3 all 6+ save.

Marines t4 3+ save

10 man marine unit- In rapid fire range

Boltgun, str 4 ap- d1 20 shots.

Vs hordes
Hits on a 3+
13.3 hit
wounds on a 3+
8 wound
1.4 save
6-7 models are dead.

VS marines
Hits on a 3+
13.3 hit
wounds on a 4+
6.5 wound
4.4 save
1.1 models are dead.

A bolter is 6x more effective against hordes than marines


Lasgun str 3 ap- d1 which happens to be the same as a termagant with a fleshborer.

lets call them a 30 model blob.

Vs hordes
Hits on 4+
15 hits
Wounds on 4+
7.5 wounds
Saves on 6+
1.25 save
6.4 dead

Vs Marines
Hits on 4+
15 hits
Wounds on 5+
5 wounds
Saves on 3+
3.33 save
1.7 dead

Again... it looks like the weapon is about 6 times more effective against hordes.

Every gun is more effective at killing hordes then it is at killing marines. Which is compounded much further the moment you get a single ap on it. Like say... necron gauss.

1. Guardsmen/conscripts have 5+ save.
2. 6.5-4.4 is 2.1, not 1.1.
3. If you now consider the point cost of marines and guardsmen or even conscripts, you proved what you wanted to disprove.

If a 20 bolter shots kill 2 marines or 6 t3 6+sv models, thats rounded 26 points of dead marines versus 24 points of dead gaunt/cultist, less against t4 or save 5+.

4. Lasguns look a bit better, if you correctly calculate 7.5-1.25, which is 6.25, not 6.4. Then 25 points of 4 point t3 6+ models die while ~21.66 points marines die. That's exactly what I stated, the best horde counters are horde units.

Some bad assumptions there, we are also talking about point for point.

Guardsman and conscripts are T3 5+ save

also your math is wrong

20 bolter shots against marines
is 6.67 wounds
2/3rds save leaving yielding
2.22 dead at 13 points each or 28.8 points

Against T3 with a 6+ save (termagats)
they kill 7.4, at 4 points each = 29.63 points
so fairly equal there but slight edge to marines.

Against T3 with a 5+ save (conscripts)
they kill 5.93, at 3 points each = 17.78 points
large edge to conscripts in durability (you kill 10 more points worth of marines)

Against T3 4+ save (Brimstones)
they kill 4.4 at 3 points each = 13.2 points
large edge to marines in durability.

Lasguns largely come out the same
kill 22.1 points of marines
25.6 termagants
15 points of conscripts
11.25 points of brims.

So on a point for point basis the hordes generally win. Unless they are 6+ save and T3 which not all hordes are, but at that point they are about equal to marines..

I will say that the broken hordes are generally the ones that are way more effective in this comparison. Start throwing in S5 anti-infantry and things swing more in the favor of the horde units.

You mention Gauss at Ap -1

20 shots kill:
3.3 marines = 42.9 points
8 Termagants = 35.6 points
6.67 conscripts = 20 points
4.4 Brims = 13.2 points

So that AP -1 swings things very much in favor of hordes over marines, as they were not saving a ton in the first place. Anything beyond AP-1 is going to be even worse for marines.














Automatically Appended Next Post:
It is also important to note that I did mention that for anti-horde you need to make things lower strength which is exactly what this proves S3 vs hordes is comparably better against said horde than it is against marines.

 Lance845 wrote:
Lets address one of the often repeated statements in this thread.

"There is no anti infantry weapon that is more effective against hordes then it is against marines."

Gaurdsmen, Cultists, Hormagaunts and Termagants. All t3 all 6+ save.

Marines t4 3+ save

10 man marine unit- In rapid fire range

Boltgun, str 4 ap- d1 20 shots.

Vs hordes
Hits on a 3+
13.3 hit
wounds on a 3+
8 wound
1.4 save
6-7 models are dead.

VS marines
Hits on a 3+
13.3 hit
wounds on a 4+
6.5 wound
4.4 save
1.1 models are dead.

A bolter is 6x more effective against hordes than marines


Lasgun str 3 ap- d1 which happens to be the same as a termagant with a fleshborer.

lets call them a 30 model blob.

Vs hordes
Hits on 4+
15 hits
Wounds on 4+
7.5 wounds
Saves on 6+
1.25 save
6.4 dead

Vs Marines
Hits on 4+
15 hits
Wounds on 5+
5 wounds
Saves on 3+
3.33 save
1.7 dead

Again... it looks like the weapon is about 6 times more effective against hordes.

Every gun is more effective at killing hordes then it is at killing marines. Which is compounded much further the moment you get a single ap on it. Like say... necron gauss.

So I've got to take some issue with your conclusion because you left out the most important step, the cost of the models killed. Of course any given volley will kill more conscripts than marines, but your missing the point.

So 10 marines firing boltguns in rapid fire range.

Against marines
20 shots
13.333 hits
6.6667 wounds
2.2222 unsaved
X 13 points = 28.89 points killed

Against grots
20 shots
13.333 hit
8.88899 wounds
7.4 unsaved
X3 points = 22.22 points killed

Against conscripts
20 shots
13.333 hit
8.8889 wounds
5.93 unsaved
X 3 points = 17.77 points killed.

Now Las

Against marines
30 shots
15 hits
5 wounds
1.667 unsaved
21.667 points killed

Against grots
30 shots
15 hits
7.5 wounds
6.25 unsaved
18 .75 points killed

Against conscripts
30 shots
15 hits
7.5 wounds
5 unsaved
15 points killed

Every weapon in the game does better shooting at not the hordes. And even then the closest you come is the weapon the hordes themselves have.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Breng77 wrote:
Some bad assumptions there, we are also talking about point for point.

Guardsman and conscripts are T3 5+ save

also your math is wrong

20 bolter shots against marines
is 6.67 wounds
2/3rds save leaving yielding
2.22 dead at 13 points each or 28.8 points

Against T3 with a 6+ save (termagats)
they kill 7.4, at 4 points each = 29.63 points
so fairly equal there but slight edge to marines.

Against T3 with a 5+ save (conscripts)
they kill 5.93, at 3 points each = 17.78 points
large edge to conscripts in durability (you kill 10 more points worth of marines)

Against T3 4+ save (Brimstones)
they kill 4.4 at 3 points each = 13.2 points
large edge to marines in durability.

Lasguns largely come out the same
kill 22.1 points of marines
25.6 termagants
15 points of conscripts
11.25 points of brims.

So on a point for point basis the hordes generally win. Unless they are 6+ save and T3 which not all hordes are, but at that point they are about equal to marines..

I will say that the broken hordes are generally the ones that are way more effective in this comparison. Start throwing in S5 anti-infantry and things swing more in the favor of the horde units.

You mention Gauss at Ap -1

20 shots kill:
3.3 marines = 42.9 points
8 Termagants = 35.6 points
6.67 conscripts = 20 points
4.4 Brims = 13.2 points

So that AP -1 swings things very much in favor of hordes over marines, as they were not saving a ton in the first place. Anything beyond AP-1 is going to be even worse for marines.














Automatically Appended Next Post:
It is also important to note that I did mention that for anti-horde you need to make things lower strength which is exactly what this proves S3 vs hordes is comparably better against said horde than it is against marines.

This. 10 are 2 so 0 shots will kill 7.22 pts of marines 8.33 points of grots and 6.667 pts of conscripts. Not perfect but moving in the right direction and a case could be made that maybe it's ok because conscripts are uniquely bad at shooting.

You guys are also not considering the cost in subsequent rounds. 1 marine is 2 less shots. 6 horde models is 6 less shots. Over the course of 5 rounds in the fictional space where these 2 units are trading blow for blow. the horde unit progressively degrades faster and faster and deals less and less wounds to the marines.

Point for point. The 30 termagants with flesh borers shooting at 10 marines from 12 inches away the gants are going to loose.

 Lance845 wrote:
You guys are also not considering the cost in subsequent rounds. 1 marine is 2 less shots. 6 horde models is 6 less shots. Over the course of 5 rounds in the fictional space where these 2 units are trading blow for blow. the horde unit progressively degrades faster and faster and deals less and less wounds to the marines.

Point for point. The 30 termagants with flesh borers shooting at 10 marines from 12 inches away the gants are going to loose.

A) I don't trust your math
B) Fleshborers are S4 if battlescribe is right.
C) Whoever goes first wins.
D) 20+ Termagaunts reroll 1s to wound.

 Lance845 wrote:
You guys are also not considering the cost in subsequent rounds. 1 marine is 2 less shots. 6 horde models is 6 less shots. Over the course of 5 rounds in the fictional space where these 2 units are trading blow for blow. the horde unit progressively degrades faster and faster and deals less and less wounds to the marines.

Point for point. The 30 termagants with flesh borers shooting at 10 marines from 12 inches away the gants are going to loose.

But there again you have a problem if you want you do that comparison it's 10 marine vs 44 gants/grots/conscripts.

So round 1

Against conscripts 20 bolter shots
6 conscripts die
Against marines 88 las shots
3 marines die (rounding down)

Round 2
Against conscripts 14 bolter shots
4 conscripts die
Against marines
3 marines die (rounding up)

Round 3
Against conscripts 8 bolter shots
2 conscripts die
Against marines
2 marines die (rounding down)

Round 1 (note I'm using surprisingly dangerous can t remember if it applies to shooting)
Against grots 20 shots
9 grots die (rounding down)
Against marines 44 shots
3 marines die (rounding down)

Round 2
Against grots 14 shots
6 grots die
Against marines 35 shots
3 marines die (rounding up)

Round 3
Against grots 8 shots
4 grots die
Against marines 29 shots
2 marines die (rounding down)

Round 1
Against gants 20 shots
7 gants die
Against marines 33 shots
3 marines die (rounding down)

Round 2
Agaisnt gants 14 shots
5 gants die
Against marines 25 shots
2 marines die (rounding down)

Round 3
Against gants 10 shots
4 gants die (rounding up)
Against marines 20 shots
2 marines die

Round 4
Against gants 6 shots
2 gants die
Against marines 16 shots
1 marine dies (rounding down)

Round 5
Against gants 4 shots
2 gants die (rounding up)
Against marines 14 shots
1 marine dies

For all of them the marines die out first. Note morale not included and updated to fix grot toughness.

Marines don't have the bodies for the math to EVER work out if the enemy is all within range.

Btw, if you get into 12", the horde will just charge you. Even the shittiest 'shooty' horde unit will spank marine ass if they outnumber them 3 or 4 to 1.

Let's face it, marines fail in every phase of the game. They are a terrible measuring stick.

Martel732 wrote:
Let's face it, marines fail in every phase of the game. They are a terrible measuring stick.

To some extent otoh they're by far the most common measuring stick. Really it's just illustrative of the fact there is nothing idealized to murder cheap t3 dudes. A high volume are 2 so 0 gun would work. A buff (as proposed) to templates to do more hits to blobs would work. For pretty much every other thing in the game you can figure out an ideal gun to shoot it with. Terminators you got charged plas and grav. Orks punisher cannon and heavy bolter heavy tanks melta and Las, light tanks missiles and autocannon. It's just hordes want a gun that either hits more because they're more models or hits lightly with a ton of shots. And all guns that follow the hits light with a ton of shots don't actually work better because the light hits are always high enough to ding marine toughness without 2 plusing the hordes. Actually maybe the assault cannon...nope just ran the number kills marines waaayyy to good to work out.

Darkagl1 wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
You guys are also not considering the cost in subsequent rounds. 1 marine is 2 less shots. 6 horde models is 6 less shots. Over the course of 5 rounds in the fictional space where these 2 units are trading blow for blow. the horde unit progressively degrades faster and faster and deals less and less wounds to the marines.

Point for point. The 30 termagants with flesh borers shooting at 10 marines from 12 inches away the gants are going to loose.

But there again you have a problem if you want you do that comparison it's 10 marine vs 44 gants/grots/conscripts.

So round 1

Against conscripts 20 bolter shots
6 conscripts die
Against marines 88 las shots
3 marines die (rounding down)

Round 2
Against conscripts 14 bolter shots
4 conscripts die
Against marines
3 marines die (rounding up)

Round 3
Against conscripts 8 bolter shots
2 conscripts die
Against marines
2 marines die (rounding down)

Round 1 (note I'm using surprisingly dangerous can t remember if it applies to shooting)
Against grots 20 shots
7 grots die (rounding down)
Against marines 44 shots
3 marines die (rounding down)

Round 2
Against grots 14 shots
5 grots die
Against marines 37 shots
3 marines die (rounding up)

Round 3
Against grots 8 shots
3 grots die
Against marines 32 shots
2 marines die (rounding down)

Round 1
Against gants 20 shots
7 gants die
Against marines 33 shots
3 marines die (rounding down)

Round 2
Agaisnt gants 14 shots
5 gants die
Against marines 25 shots
2 marines die (rounding down)

Round 3
Against gants 10 shots
4 gants die (rounding up)
Against marines 20 shots
2 marines die

Round 4
Against gants 6 shots
2 gants die
Against marines 16 shots
1 marine dies (rounding down)

Round 5
Against gants 4 shots
2 gants die (rounding up)
Against marines 14 shots
1 marine dies

For all of them the marines die out first.

Your math on grots is wrong because they really are what super cheap chaff should be - weak.

Grots are T2

So against 20 marine shots 9 grots die round 1. Then they lose at best D3 more (so 2) to morale if they have a mitigating character.
So if the marines shoot first they will win, if we assume two 22 grot squads for this purpose

Turn 1- 11 grots die, return fire kills 2 Marines
Turn 2 - 8 Grots die (1 squad down to 3), 1 Marine dies
Turn 3 - 7 grots die (1 squad of 3, 1 squad of 15), 1 marine dies
turn 4 - 6 grots die (1 squad of 3, 1 squad of 9) 1 marine dies
turn 5 - 5 grots die (1 squad of 3 and 1 of 4), 0 marines die
Turn 6 - 1 squad dies so 4 (3 left), 0 marines die
turn 7 - grots die

now, we will notice that this takes 7 turns to do, if the grots shoot first they kill 3 marines in the first turn, and end up grinding them down (6 grots die), then 2 more marines die (5 grots die), 2 more marines die, so the grots grind down the marines.

The issue here is that there is basically no options marines can take that significantly swings this in their favor, especially when considering points. 2 flamers and a heavy bolter would be about the best value but that is the cost of about 7 more grots I think. It is also true as was noted the grots would charge in all likely hood to cut down on the number of marine attacks.





Automatically Appended Next Post:

Darkagl1 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Let's face it, marines fail in every phase of the game. They are a terrible measuring stick.

To some extent otoh they're by far the most common measuring stick. Really it's just illustrative of the fact there is nothing idealized to murder cheap t3 dudes. A high volume are 2 so 0 gun would work. A buff (as proposed) to templates to do more hits to blobs would work. For pretty much every other thing in the game you can figure out an ideal gun to shoot it with. Terminators you got charged plas and grav. Orks punisher cannon and heavy bolter heavy tanks melta and Las, light tanks missiles and autocannon. It's just hordes want a gun that either hits more because they're more models or hits lightly with a ton of shots. And all guns that follow the hits light with a ton of shots don't actually work better because the light hits are always high enough to ding marine toughness without 2 plusing the hordes. Actually maybe the assault cannon...nope just ran the number kills marines waaayyy to good to work out.

As I showed above, S2 weapons with a bunch of shots actually do exactly what you seek, because they wound hordes twice as often as they do marines.

Martel732 wrote:
Marines don't have the bodies for the math to EVER work out if the enemy is all within range.

So don't let them all be within range and LOS. Take a horde piecemeal and marines can get it done, because model for model they trade very favorably.

 Insectum7 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Marines don't have the bodies for the math to EVER work out if the enemy is all within range.

So don't let them all be within range and LOS. Take a horde piecemeal and marines can get it done, because model for model they trade very favorably.

I disagree, because the true purpose of the horde is to let the rest of the list blast your marines to pieces. This is triply true for guard. They don't need their conscripts to do a thing in reality other than just stand there.

If you have no deep strikers, ineffective deep strikers, or have committed all your deep strikers, there's no reason for them NOT to horde up. And then they will all be within range.

Breng77 wrote:

Darkagl1 wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
You guys are also not considering the cost in subsequent rounds. 1 marine is 2 less shots. 6 horde models is 6 less shots. Over the course of 5 rounds in the fictional space where these 2 units are trading blow for blow. the horde unit progressively degrades faster and faster and deals less and less wounds to the marines.

Point for point. The 30 termagants with flesh borers shooting at 10 marines from 12 inches away the gants are going to loose.

But there again you have a problem if you want you do that comparison it's 10 marine vs 44 gants/grots/conscripts.

So round 1

Against conscripts 20 bolter shots
6 conscripts die
Against marines 88 las shots
3 marines die (rounding down)

Round 2
Against conscripts 14 bolter shots
4 conscripts die
Against marines
3 marines die (rounding up)

Round 3
Against conscripts 8 bolter shots
2 conscripts die
Against marines
2 marines die (rounding down)

Round 1 (note I'm using surprisingly dangerous can t remember if it applies to shooting)
Against grots 20 shots
7 grots die (rounding down)
Against marines 44 shots
3 marines die (rounding down)

Round 2
Against grots 14 shots
5 grots die
Against marines 37 shots
3 marines die (rounding up)

Round 3
Against grots 8 shots
3 grots die
Against marines 32 shots
2 marines die (rounding down)

Round 1
Against gants 20 shots
7 gants die
Against marines 33 shots
3 marines die (rounding down)

Round 2
Agaisnt gants 14 shots
5 gants die
Against marines 25 shots
2 marines die (rounding down)

Round 3
Against gants 10 shots
4 gants die (rounding up)
Against marines 20 shots
2 marines die

Round 4
Against gants 6 shots
2 gants die
Against marines 16 shots
1 marine dies (rounding down)

Round 5
Against gants 4 shots
2 gants die (rounding up)
Against marines 14 shots
1 marine dies

For all of them the marines die out first.

Your math on grots is wrong because they really are what super cheap chaff should be - weak.

Grots are T2

So against 20 marine shots 9 grots die round 1. Then they lose at best D3 more (so 2) to morale if they have a mitigating character.
So if the marines shoot first they will win, if we assume two 22 grot squads for this purpose

Turn 1- 11 grots die, return fire kills 2 Marines
Turn 2 - 8 Grots die (1 squad down to 3), 1 Marine dies
Turn 3 - 7 grots die (1 squad of 3, 1 squad of 15), 1 marine dies
turn 4 - 6 grots die (1 squad of 3, 1 squad of 9) 1 marine dies
turn 5 - 5 grots die (1 squad of 3 and 1 of 4), 0 marines die
Turn 6 - 1 squad dies so 4 (3 left), 0 marines die
turn 7 - grots die

now, we will notice that this takes 7 turns to do, if the grots shoot first they kill 3 marines in the first turn, and end up grinding them down (6 grots die), then 2 more marines die (5 grots die), 2 more marines die, so the grots grind down the marines.

The issue here is that there is basically no options marines can take that significantly swings this in their favor, especially when considering points. 2 flamers and a heavy bolter would be about the best value but that is the cost of about 7 more grots I think. It is also true as was noted the grots would charge in all likely hood to cut down on the number of marine attacks.





Automatically Appended Next Post:

Darkagl1 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Let's face it, marines fail in every phase of the game. They are a terrible measuring stick.

To some extent otoh they're by far the most common measuring stick. Really it's just illustrative of the fact there is nothing idealized to murder cheap t3 dudes. A high volume are 2 so 0 gun would work. A buff (as proposed) to templates to do more hits to blobs would work. For pretty much every other thing in the game you can figure out an ideal gun to shoot it with. Terminators you got charged plas and grav. Orks punisher cannon and heavy bolter heavy tanks melta and Las, light tanks missiles and autocannon. It's just hordes want a gun that either hits more because they're more models or hits lightly with a ton of shots. And all guns that follow the hits light with a ton of shots don't actually work better because the light hits are always high enough to ding marine toughness without 2 plusing the hordes. Actually maybe the assault cannon...nope just ran the number kills marines waaayyy to good to work out.

As I showed above, S2 weapons with a bunch of shots actually do exactly what you seek, because they wound hordes twice as often as they do marines.

Good catch on the t2 I hadn't realized that, I had been having them fire simultaneously. The morale point also matter though I suppose it is possible for the marines to lose a guy to that as well which would be very bad if rather unlikely. I agree a str 2 ap0 weapon (with lots of shots) would work as well as a solution as the template change. Part of my desire to tackle thos with templates and blasts (though especially flamers and perhaps frag) is due to a desire not to have to get a new gun made and distributed through the armies. Unfortunately the extra points on the weapons only means more scrubs and both of those actually make the marines even better against other marines. I'm curious as to how true the point efficient killing is if we look to some of the more elite t3 models (eldar/admech)

Martel732 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Marines don't have the bodies for the math to EVER work out if the enemy is all within range.

So don't let them all be within range and LOS. Take a horde piecemeal and marines can get it done, because model for model they trade very favorably.

I disagree, because the true purpose of the horde is to let the rest of the list blast your marines to pieces. This is triply true for guard. They don't need their conscripts to do a thing in reality other than just stand there.

If you have no deep strikers, ineffective deep strikers, or have committed all your deep strikers, there's no reason for them NOT to horde up. And then they will all be within range.

Sure, but if they're positioned to protect against deep strikers and surrounding their artillery lot, their footprint isn't small. If they're spread to 30" wide, that's still a couple turns for the far end to reach you. Attacking them on one flank is about the minimum you can do.

Depends on the objectives.

As i said, they don't do the real damage, but it's a frustrating thought experiment.

Darkagl1 wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
I don't understand the problem to be honest. You're all saying that orks are not competitive and that brimstones or razorwing flocks were nerfed so it's irrelevant mentioning them. In fact daemons hordes are not manageble by everyone. Tyranids are also far from being overpowered, with orks and drukhari I have fair games against some competitive tyranids lists and that says everything.

Counter the hordes in general may be something that can be considered but then you should improve a lot those armies that mostly rely on the number of their cheap dudes, since usually the rest of the codex isn't competitive at all.

That ork player that usually tables the opponents probably plays in a 100% fluffy and casual environment, have a look at data tournaments and see how many horde oriented lists end up in the first positions. Only AM and imperial soups using AM cheap bodies.

At the end of the day even if you don't have a specific anti horde tool but still have good odds to defeat tyranids, orks, daemons or other hordes but AM where's the issue?

With orks I have extremely poor anti tank and no anti flyers at all, but I can still win games against armored lists and armies that bring flyers. I can do very little against those specific units but I can do a lot against the enemy list overall.

AM is overpowered, we all know that. It's not fair and doesn't help the game a nerf of a specific style of playing just to counter a single army. Make imperial soups illegal and increase the cost of AM firepower, problem solved without screwing non overpowered hordes.

First off in imperial soup and AM are hardly the only strong tourney lists, chaos soup is also doing quite well but that's really not the point.

The ork player plays at my flgs which idk how competitive it is the. We have a ton of ITC and ATC guys there, but idk how fluffy they are when playing. The lists all seem fairly tuned to me. He plays a green horde supported by a gak ton of weirdboys and just smite spam everyone to death forcing d6 smites by keeping enough boys nearby. Whether it's truly competitive idk, but I've seen him destroy lots of people and I haven't been able to beat him, though I haven't used my guard against him only admech.

I don't disagree that we could in theory work on conscripts only, though personally I don't think they're the real problem, I more think it's earthshaker batteries and mortar teams that can be bubble wrapped and kept out of sight. My issue is even if we today did something to "fix" conscripts we're left with a system where the horde armies will either be bad or OP. It's really the only two choices imo. Either they're cheap enough with enough support to wreck people or they aren't and you shouldn't bring them.

I agree with Blackie.

Darkagl, you keep saying there needs to be a "counter" to hordes. I think the key thing you're missing is that, if lists are consistently able to defeat most horde armies, then there's already a viable strategy for countering hordes. It just doesn't happen to be a hyper-specific counter that only works against hordes. You can beat fire pokemon with something other than water pokemon, and you can beat ork boyz without being forced to take flamer spam or buffing flamers. Most horde armies are far from being unbeatable.

And so what if most weapons are more efficient against meqs than hordes? At the end of the day, you'll still be wishing you'd brought meltas instead of flamers when your opponent bring a mechanized list, and you'll still be wishing you'd brought flamers instead of meltas when you're facing a green tide.

I still don't understand your insistence that hordes are permanently broken if we deal with a couple of the leading problem children. Razorwing flocks were a problem for like... a week, and they're honestly not all that big a deal. Ignoring conscripts (which we all know are broken on their own) and chaos soup hordes (which are way less of an issue if you fix malefic lords), and what problematic horde armies do you foresee dominating the meta? Because right now a lot of us are saying "If you fix a couple of standout hordes, most other horde armies are fine," and you're saying, "Nah. Anything with a horde is secretly too good. People just aren't using *that* horde yet."

You keep referencing your anecdotal local ork player. Orks are... not really crushing it at tournaments right now. They're actually kind of a rare sight from what I've seen. I don't mean this in a rude way, but it kind of sounds like you're letting your own personal difficulties with defeating a local player who may or may not be competitive bias your stance on the topic. If you haven't already, maybe create a thread in the tactics section of this forum so that we can help you find a way to deal with your friend's list? Because wyrd boy spam with lots of boyz backing it up, while not without its teeth, sounds very, very counterable.

Wyldhunt wrote:

Darkagl1 wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
I don't understand the problem to be honest. You're all saying that orks are not competitive and that brimstones or razorwing flocks were nerfed so it's irrelevant mentioning them. In fact daemons hordes are not manageble by everyone. Tyranids are also far from being overpowered, with orks and drukhari I have fair games against some competitive tyranids lists and that says everything.

Counter the hordes in general may be something that can be considered but then you should improve a lot those armies that mostly rely on the number of their cheap dudes, since usually the rest of the codex isn't competitive at all.

That ork player that usually tables the opponents probably plays in a 100% fluffy and casual environment, have a look at data tournaments and see how many horde oriented lists end up in the first positions. Only AM and imperial soups using AM cheap bodies.

At the end of the day even if you don't have a specific anti horde tool but still have good odds to defeat tyranids, orks, daemons or other hordes but AM where's the issue?

With orks I have extremely poor anti tank and no anti flyers at all, but I can still win games against armored lists and armies that bring flyers. I can do very little against those specific units but I can do a lot against the enemy list overall.

AM is overpowered, we all know that. It's not fair and doesn't help the game a nerf of a specific style of playing just to counter a single army. Make imperial soups illegal and increase the cost of AM firepower, problem solved without screwing non overpowered hordes.

First off in imperial soup and AM are hardly the only strong tourney lists, chaos soup is also doing quite well but that's really not the point.

The ork player plays at my flgs which idk how competitive it is the. We have a ton of ITC and ATC guys there, but idk how fluffy they are when playing. The lists all seem fairly tuned to me. He plays a green horde supported by a gak ton of weirdboys and just smite spam everyone to death forcing d6 smites by keeping enough boys nearby. Whether it's truly competitive idk, but I've seen him destroy lots of people and I haven't been able to beat him, though I haven't used my guard against him only admech.

I don't disagree that we could in theory work on conscripts only, though personally I don't think they're the real problem, I more think it's earthshaker batteries and mortar teams that can be bubble wrapped and kept out of sight. My issue is even if we today did something to "fix" conscripts we're left with a system where the horde armies will either be bad or OP. It's really the only two choices imo. Either they're cheap enough with enough support to wreck people or they aren't and you shouldn't bring them.

I agree with Blackie.

Darkagl, you keep saying there needs to be a "counter" to hordes. I think the key thing you're missing is that, if lists are consistently able to defeat most horde armies, then there's already a viable strategy for countering hordes. It just doesn't happen to be a hyper-specific counter that only works against hordes. You can beat fire pokemon with something other than water pokemon, and you can beat ork boyz without being forced to take flamer spam or buffing flamers. Most horde armies are far from being unbeatable.

And so what if most weapons are more efficient against meqs than hordes? At the end of the day, you'll still be wishing you'd brought meltas instead of flamers when your opponent bring a mechanized list, and you'll still be wishing you'd brought flamers instead of meltas when you're facing a green tide.

I still don't understand your insistence that hordes are permanently broken if we deal with a couple of the leading problem children. Razorwing flocks were a problem for like... a week, and they're honestly not all that big a deal. Ignoring conscripts (which we all know are broken on their own) and chaos soup hordes (which are way less of an issue if you fix malefic lords), and what problematic horde armies do you foresee dominating the meta? Because right now a lot of us are saying "If you fix a couple of standout hordes, most other horde armies are fine," and you're saying, "Nah. Anything with a horde is secretly too good. People just aren't using *that* horde yet."

You keep referencing your anecdotal local ork player. Orks are... not really crushing it at tournaments right now. They're actually kind of a rare sight from what I've seen. I don't mean this in a rude way, but it kind of sounds like you're letting your own personal difficulties with defeating a local player who may or may not be competitive bias your stance on the topic. If you haven't already, maybe create a thread in the tactics section of this forum so that we can help you find a way to deal with your friend's list? Because wyrd boy spam with lots of boyz backing it up, while not without its teeth, sounds very, very counterable.

I don't think every horde is inherently broken I do think there are some sleepers being suppressed by the dominance of conscripts. That said the reason for this change isn't that I think all hordes are running rampant. It's that as long as there is no direct anti small mob weapon in the game I think horde units exist as either broken or bad. It's easy to make conscripts not broken. Just go ahead and increase the cost at some point though they just become not worth it. I've played the ork horde I think its good and I think its a sleeper list, but I'm not advocating doing anything until it would show up more rampantly. Honestly this whole thing came to me when thinking about the cost/benefit of removing templates from the game. I dig the speed, but it certainly pushes the game in a certain direction. At that point I thought well let's say someone wants to bring a gak ton of cheap dudes what can I bring that works well against that and when I came to the best thing I can bring is my own gak ton of cheap dudes it became apparent to me at least that the system wasn't in a great place. That said if you can present any other unit where there is no counter whatsoever I'll also advocate for something that counters that as well. Because if we're trying to move to a well balanced system, where every choice is a solid one to bring to the table, you need those counters.

If there are X general ways of running hordes that are "too good" and warrant nerfing for the good of the game as a whole, then looking at said horde armies/units and dealing with them individually still seems like a solid approach to me.

As for dealing with enemy hordes... How you'll want to tackle that problem just depends on the type of horde involved and the army you're running. Some armies have sufficient small arms fire on elite units to be reasonably effective against hordes. Some armies do rely on their own hordes. Some armies have enough range or durability that hordes aren't actually efficient enough to do meaningful damage to them in a given turn.

I'm not against trying to cook up options that are specifically good point for point against hordes and less good against more elite units. I just don't think that that's strictly necessary for overcoming hordes. If mixing in a few durable units and a reasonable amount of anti-infantry wins you the game, then it wins you the game. You don't necessarily need to invent a strength 2 +1 AP Assault 5d6 flamer or whatever to win a game.

To use the Pokemon metaphor again, you don't need a water pokemon to beat a fire pokemon. Sometimes you just need something with decent stats and Tackle. That is, you don't need a dedicated anti-X weapon to beat X.

Wyldhunt wrote:
If there are X general ways of running hordes that are "too good" and warrant nerfing for the good of the game as a whole, then looking at said horde armies/units and dealing with them individually still seems like a solid approach to me.

As for dealing with enemy hordes... How you'll want to tackle that problem just depends on the type of horde involved and the army you're running. Some armies have sufficient small arms fire on elite units to be reasonably effective against hordes. Some armies do rely on their own hordes. Some armies have enough range or durability that hordes aren't actually efficient enough to do meaningful damage to them in a given turn.

I'm not against trying to cook up options that are specifically good point for point against hordes and less good against more elite units. I just don't think that that's strictly necessary for overcoming hordes. If mixing in a few durable units and a reasonable amount of anti-infantry wins you the game, then it wins you the game. You don't necessarily need to invent a strength 2 +1 AP Assault 5d6 flamer or whatever to win a game.

To use the Pokemon metaphor again, you don't need a water pokemon to beat a fire pokemon. Sometimes you just need something with decent stats and Tackle. That is, you don't need a dedicated anti-X weapon to beat X.

I mean it's fair to say it's not strictly necessary. There are a multitude of ways that you could stop horses from being an issue other than the template or new weapon. Increase their points or decrease the cost of small arms infantry or decrease the cost of anti infantry weaponry, or realistically make it somehow easier for morale to matter. The issue I think is points in the absence of a direct counter is very binary, since when something can be cost effectively answered by a weapon or troop whose weakness is it's general applicability it's almost certainly overdosed in my mind. If it can't be efficiently answered then I think we have the OPness. Decreasing the cost of small arms non horde infantry then runs afoul of supplanting the hordes very purpose. Decreasing anti infantry weapons costs doesn't work because that ends up hurting all other non horde infantry worse. Now perhaps you can hit a non OP level for hordes there, but my theory would be that for that to occur you'll have pushed the other infantry out of the game because they get hurt by that anti infantry weaponry worse than the hordes do. While this may provide sufficient external balance it removes internal balance which is important to me at least. Making morale matter is tricky, perhaps get more snipers in the game, but commissars at least are usually pretty good at hiding, and if we make snipers too good they mess up other characters too. Which kinda brings me back to why I think the system would be better with the template change (and a rebalance of points if necessary post change for the hordes) or adding in a suitable weapon. To switch from Pokemon to magic, when you answer has to be an artifact it's almost always either way too good or way too bad, cause the artifact remove the specificity that allows for balance.

I think your making a mountain out of a mole hill that mostly doesn't exist to begin with.

 Lance845 wrote:
I think your making a mountain out of a mole hill that mostly doesn't exist to begin with.

Lol I mean I don't agree, but you're certainly entitled to your opinion on this.

If you want to balance hordes do the simple thing and bring back templates. Large blasts, Small blasts, Apocalyptic blasts, Flame templates.
Suddenly hordes are dying left and right or so spread out they cannot bring any effective weight of fire to bare on any targets.